Hawaiians were sent scrambling Saturday morning — for more than 30 minutes — after an emergency alert notification warned of a ballistic missile threat, which turned out to be an error.

A flurry of tweets, often with screenshots of the message, appeared to pop up on cellphones shortly after 8 a.m. local time. The message read, "Ballistic Missile Threat Inbound To Hawaii. Seek Immediate Shelter. This Is Not A Drill."

The message sent at least a few rushing for shelters as people pondered whether a missile was heading toward the island.Thirty-eight minutes later, Hawaii Emergency Management Agency public information officer Richard Rapoza said the alert was sent in error.

"What happened was ... during shift changes (with) outgoing and incoming staff, somebody selected the wrong item on a computer. It was user error," Rapoza said.

Though administrator Vern Miyagi said at an EMA press conference that an unnamed longtime employee made the error, Rapoza told USA TODAY, "We're not pointing fingers at an individual. What we need to do now is address the problem."

Gov. David Ige apologizes

Hawaii Gov. David Ige vowed to "get to the bottom of this" and said he'd be meeting with the Defense Department and the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency so that it doesn't happen again.

"We are sorry that this false alarm has occurred. We are committed to ensure that it never happens again," Ige said in a press conference. "We have already taken action to minimize that possibility, by suspending tests, and already implemented a process to ensure that at least two people are involved in (the alert-sending) process."

Emily Clagett, a Maryland resident who was vacationing in Hawaii, was driving with her husband when she heard an emergency message on the radio to pull over and take cover before a missile hits.

"People started running," she said. "We saw this Catholic church and we're Catholic, so we went into the chapel to pray," and join several others doing the same thing. Clagett, who was thinking of her four kids back home, couldn't stop crying.

"It was the real deal," she said. "Finally we got that alert saying it's a false alarm."

Airbnb host Ted Daul, who lives and rents out property on Kauai, told USA TODAY he got the alert this morning while "making some Saturday morning blueberry pancakes" with his wife. He then dubbed the breakfast "end of the world pancakes," he said, because he thought it would be his final meal.

"My wife and I, we actually just got into bed and told each other how much we loved each other," Daul said. "We just had this moment and told everyone how much we loved and cared about them."

About a half hour later, he read a message from Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, who tweeted an all-caps all-clear even before a new alert was sent saying the first message was false.

HAWAII - THIS IS A FALSE ALARM. THERE IS NO INCOMING MISSILE. THE ALERT WAS SENT OUT INADVERENTLY. I HAVE SPOKEN TO HAWAII OFFICIALS AND CONFIRMED THERE IS NO THREAT. pic.twitter.com/hwRGct2aTa

That message came out before a new phone alert because, as Rapoza says, EMA "did not have the process in place to send out an all clear," and had to get approval by the Federal Emergency Management Agency before sending another wireless emergency message.

"We did cancel the message, but (that process) doesn’t recall any messages," he says.

The U.S. Department of Defense also put out its own message, saying the agency "detected no missile threat to Hawaii. Earlier message was sent in error."

U.S. Pacific Command has detected no ballistic missile threat to Hawaii. Earlier message was sent in error. State of Hawaii will send out a correction message as soon possible. pic.twitter.com/hqidbV0BWn

Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii wrote, "There is no missile threat. It was a false alarm based on a human error." He sent a second tweet using capitalization to emphasize the "FALSE ALARM." He said, "There needs to be tough and quick accountability and a fixed process."

There is no missile threat. It was a false alarm based on a human error. There is nothing more important to Hawai‘i than professionalizing and fool-proofing this process.